A YEAR AFTER ICELAND, PART II: A VOLCANIC SUNSET

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After writing about our first Icelandic adventure and labeling it “Part I,” I’ve quickly come to realize that I haven’t actually planned how many “parts” this blog series is going to have (oops). But one thing is for certain: labeling anything “Part I” requires there to be (at the very least) a Part II. I’m fairly certain there will be a Part III, and maybe even a Part IV - I can’t really know for sure. There are so many adventures to write about, and so many unseen pictures to be shared, but there is only so much time in the day. For now though, here is the story of one of the most patience and will-testing adventures we had in Iceland - A Year After Iceland, Part II: A Volcanic Sunset.

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It was Day 3 of our trek across Iceland and we had already traversed more than 700 kilometers (434 miles) around, and then into the heart of the frozen tundra.  Everything that we could have possibly expected from the land of fire and ice had already been thrown at us; testing our physical and mental limits:  Sleep deprivation, howling wind storms, subzero temperatures, and blizzards all the like.  Even food scarcity was an issue (it was winter, after all).  The exhaustion was only a hair’s width away from morphing into outright frustration, and a breaking point was nearing as we reached one of our most anticipated stops of the day: Lake Viti.

Lake Viti (“Viti” literally translating to “hell” in Icelandic) is a crater lake that was formed inside an active volcano who’s most recent eruption was as late as 1976.  Despite the inherent danger of the volcano, the lake itself shimmers a welcoming, light blue color during the months it isn’t frozen over, and as such is a hot spot (no pun intended) for tourism and photography.  It’s an easy drive to get there in the summer; with a public access road that leads up the steep volcano and straight to a parking lot a few hundred meters from the edge of the crater.  But this wasn’t the summer, and the drive to reach the crater was anything but easy.  

As we approached the base of the volcano, the four of us skeptically looked up at the snow-covered road that lay ahead.  Our trusty Rav4 had shown no previous struggles with forging through moderate snow on flat land, but we hadn’t yet tested its mountain-climbing capabilities.  And to make matters even more dicey, we were now in the middle of a full on blizzard.  And when I say blizzard, I mean blizzard.  50 feet in any direction was about as far as they eye could see before the rest of the world disappeared into a hazy white.  All in all, the conditions were not ideal, but hey, the conditions hadn’t been ideal the entire trip!  We were driving up that volcano and nothing, not even a perilous, icy, invisibly steep road was going to stop us.  And it didn’t…but the tourists did.

We began our ascension of the icy volcano confidently, and not more than a quarter of the way up the mountain we were stopped dead our tracks - a car had been abandoned in the middle of the road, adjacent to another car stuck in the snow to the side.  There was no way around them without serious risk of treacherously deep snow.  As we sat in our car, contemplating our next move, another, more off-road worthy vehicle came up along side us.  A burly Icelandic man got out to begin towing the abandoned cars out of the snow, and to sternly remind us that the road was now CLOSED to all vehicle traffic.  Any hopes of an easy drive to the crater were now up in flames (or snow, if you will).  

Unbroken by the slew of challenges that had befallen us, we donned our heavy jackets, rain coats, and anything we could find that would offer insulation from the cold.  Staying warm was going to be an absolute essential, because we were about to scale the 2.5 kilometer road up the mountain to Viti crater…on foot.  

The hike itself was manageable, albeit incredibly difficult.  The wind, snow, and cold were unrelenting.  And each step up the icy terrain was, more often than not, followed by sliding a half step back down.  The tingling sensations in my face and fingers quickly turned to numbness, and the road seemed to continue to wind endlessly upward into the snowy abyss.  But none of that, not the cold nor the snow, was as defeating as reaching the summit.  

A quick Google images search of Viti crater would show brilliantly vast views across the surrounding lakes and mountains - a landscape photographer’s paradise.  We had none of that.  Instead we were met with an unending winter wasteland.  The mountains and lakes were lost in flurries of snow blanketing the sky, and the beautiful blue water of Lake Viti was a pale white of ice and dirt.  We stood on an outcropping of rock on the edge of the crater, looking for something, anything to be seen.  There was nothing.  Just snow being thrown from the sky to the ground, and then back up again.  We set out our cameras, hoping for some semblance of luck, only to have them blanketed in water droplets as wandering snow flakes came to rest on them.  Taking pictures was a lost cause.  The blizzards weren’t giving up, so it finally became time that we did.  We packed away our gear and, wouldn’t you know it, luck finally began to shine its light on us.  Literally.

The very blizzard that had been tormenting our group for more than an hour parted like the Red Sea, breaking over Viti crater to reveal the sun sinking behind the hazy Iceland horizon.  Light erupted into the sky, transforming the dreary snow flakes into colorful streams wisping across the icy crater.  It was surreal.  As quickly as we had put away our cameras, we ferociously tore them back out and began taking photos; one after another, and on and on until the blizzard once again covered the sky.  Our window of snow-free scenery lasted only minutes, but all of the cold, wind, and snow could never strip away its - if only momentary - beauty.  

We sat there, on the edge of that crater, for some time after; completely mesmerized; smiles stretching from ear to ear.  This was it.  This was what traveling the world, braving the cold, and battling the snow was all about.  Little glimpses of majesty in the midst of “hell” on Earth.  This was why we came to Iceland.

The proceeding hike down the mountain was jovial as could be: laughing and joking along the way.  It was still miserably cold outside, but no one cared.  We had survived it, and it had been worth every second.  “What was next?”  We all wondered.  “What more was this strange land going to throw at us?”  Only time would tell…and we still had 8 more days of that.

A YEAR AFTER ICELAND, PART I: SCATTERING HORIZONS

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It’s been exactly 1 year since three friends and I decided to “skip” Thanksgiving with our families and travel to Iceland.  I still remember it like it was yesterday, though.  The camaraderie, the adventure, the beauty, and the few, or more realistically: many, near-death experiences along the way made it, truly, the Adventure of a Lifetime.  

Our group of four was comprised of two photographers - myself and another - and two adventurers.  Now, this isn’t to say that us photographers weren’t equally as adventurous as our counterparts, but really just that we carried more camera gear on our backs the whole time.  Definitions aside, our group make-up came with a nice combination of, “let’s move around and see lots of things,” and, “let’s sit here and wait for the perfect lighting,” that wound up, in my opinion, creating the ideal balance between adventure and, well, recording those adventures.  

Over the course of the next 11 days, many pictures would be taken, each one telling its own story - some of peril, some of beauty, but most certainly all of, you guessed it, adventure.  This picture of Harfusfell Mountain is just one of those stories, but it’s one of my favorites, so here’s to hoping that this picture isn’t worth quite 1000 words…

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Our first morning in Iceland was like any other Icelandic winter morning: cold, and dark.  The low was about 15 degrees below 0, Celsius.  The four of us had piled into our Rav4 and were navigating the snow-covered highways in the pitch-black looking for a nondescript natural hot spring in the middle of the Iceland tundra.   Needless to say, we were lost.  GPS navigation in the Icelandic countryside was spotty at best, and any hope of finding a road sign was lost under several feet of snow.  Our first Icelandic “adventure” was about to turn out to be a bust.  

As the sun began to rise, and our hopes of finding our seemingly mythical oasis of hot water began to sink, a small plume of steam shimmered faintly in the distance.  We were close!  We drove back and forth along the small highway, always keeping an eye on the steam, trying to find a drive-able route to reach the hot spring until, finally, we drew the conclusion that our Rav4 had enough off-road prowess to forge through the snow.  It was a risky call, but it was one that paid off.  We were able to park within walking distance of the hot spring and then, for the first time on the trip, stepped out into the frozen winter-land that was Iceland.

I remember how beautiful the white snow was as it sparkled in the low morning light.  I also remember being cold.  VERY COLD.  I remember the shrieks of my fellow travelers as we stripped down to our underwear and stepped foot onto the frigid permafrost; our skin screaming in pain at the chilling sensation.  We ran, and I mean ran, into the hot spring as soon as we were free of our clothes and in an instant: sweet relief.  The water from the spring was juxtaposed perfectly against our surroundings; it was hot, comforting, and so relaxing.  The four of us sank ourselves in as deep as we could and rested our gazes upon the still pond in front of us, backed by the snow-covered peaks of Harfusfell Mountain.  The low, clear sky above the mountain began to faintly glow pink, and that’s when I realized what the we were about to have front-row, hot-tub seats to:  Our first Icelandic sunrise.  

Well, maybe not “sunrise” exactly.  The sun itself was actually rising behind us to the East (as it should), but during every sunrise, typically just before the sun crests the Eastern horizon, the Western horizon will burn a deep pink and purple.  This is because the wavelengths of purple and pink light are longer than other wavelengths in the visible light spectrum, and therefore are able to bend (sort of) around the Earth and be seen reflecting in the opposing horizon just before the sun officially rises (and sets).  Now, normally this reflection of pink and purple wavelengths lasts only a few minutes, or even seconds in some skies, but because of Iceland’s far Northern latitude, sunrises and sunsets last much longer, and therefore their associated colors in the sky last longer as well.  With all of that said, it was the perfect set up for an Icelandic photography session…except for the cold.

While we may have been in our own little hot-tub during this beautiful sunrise, the outside air temperature was still well below zero, and we were, as luck would have it, still in just our bathing suits.  But we did have our camera equipment with us, so we grabbed our cameras - tripod and all - and brought them into the water with us (being careful not to get our cameras in the water, of course).  Then the real challenge came - actually taking the pictures.  

To avoid any interruptions in the picture (like steam crowding the frame) I had decided to use neutral density filters to allow myself to take longer exposures that would “erase” intermittent objects - a simple, but costly solution to our ever changing surroundings.  Each of the filters had to be hand-screwed on and off of the lens each time I wanted to recompose the photo, and to do that, I had to get out of the water and stand in the below zero, Iceland winter air in just my underwear.  The experience was…miserable.  I was shivering and shaking, making it all the more difficult to use my camera properly and, at one point, I even dropped one of my filters into the hot spring - what a nightmare.  But, when all was said and done, the final picture was more than memorable.

The whole sunrise lasted about 30 minutes, and I stood in the cold for the better part of that time trying to make sure I was getting everything out of my first Icelandic photo-op that I could.  The experience was something that I will never forget, and the image of Harfusfell Mountain beneath Iceland’s beautiful, light-scattering horizons will remain an one of my all-time favorites because of that.  

But like I said before: this is just one of the many stories that came from our Icelandic adventure.  And we still had 10 more days to go…

“DEFYING THE (ASTRONOMICAL) ODDS”

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It’s been nearly four years since the last time I set out to capture a photo of a lunar eclipse; in part because I always thought it would be tough to one-up the last one I took, but mainly because the process of capturing a lunar eclipse is cumbersome and I’ve just been too lazy to do it (It takes an inordinate amount of planning and then AT LEAST four hours of shooting the day of.  *insert “ain’t nobody got time for that” gif here*).  But Wednesday night’s “Super-Blue-Blood” Moon presented an opportunity just rare enough to warrant me staying up all night to photograph it.

Now, as a disclaimer, I must note that, while the Super-Blue-Blood Moon was certainly a unique phenomenon, it was pretty much visibly identical to any other, run-of-the-mill lunar eclipse.  Its real significance lies in how infrequently all three astrological events – super moon, blue moon, and blood moon – align with one another (HINT: The last time this particular alignment happened was more than 150 years ago, so…sort of a big deal).  To add fuel to the improbability fire, this particular eclipse was NOT fully visible in Texas – my home base – so you could imagine my frustration when reading about one of the rarest astrological phenomena in my lifetime, and then realizing that I probably wouldn’t even get to see it.  But when the super, blue, and blood moons align, apparently the stars do, too, because I was just going to happen to be working in Melbourne, Australia during the date of the eclipse; where it would be in full view. 

Knowing that I would now be able to witness the Super-Blue-Blood Moon, I set out (a full month in advance) to start planning my photo.  I did all the math, picked out potential foregrounds, determined exposure settings, and spent the two weeks preceding the eclipse scouting the city every night to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.  Seriously, the amount of planning that I did was actually inordinate (told you), so naturally, the night of, it all went out the window.  Math?  Gone.  Lens choice?  Gone.  Foregrounds?  Gone.  They all got replaced by the worst thing possible: clouds. 

You see, if astro-photographers are Superman (we are), then clouds are our kryptonite; and the night of the eclipse the Melbourne sky was full of astro-photographer kryptonite.  An inescapably large mass of clouds was perched above the city skyline, blocking any view of the moon, stars, and even some buildings, and was forecast to stick around for the night.  It was the death sentence to a month’s worth of planning and preparing.  But, as with every other improbability that had made this photo possible thus far – the moon, the location, the timing - the clouds began to (re)align, too.  Just as the eclipse entered its initial stages, a strong wind came across the city, and no more than 10 minutes later what had been a gloomy, cloud-filled sky, was now crystal clear.  The picture taking could commence, but (of course) not without a couple more mishaps that would land me at my final product…

As it would turn out, I did my math, well, wrong.  The moon was now MUCH higher in the sky than I had predicted it to be (Apparently being an engineer doesn’t mean you’re immune to sucking at math, who knew?), and I was now going to need to completely re-imagine the way in which I was going to compose my photo.  That meant changing lenses, location, exposure length, everything.  I now had to improvise a photo that I had initially needed an entire month to plan and, honestly, I ended up just getting lucky.  I wandered around the Arts Centre of Melbourne Tower – my chosen foreground – looking for a good angle and, after essentially giving up, sat down in the nearby grass, looked up, and saw the picture I wanted.  So, yes, at its roots this photo was essentially a mistake that went really, really well.

The three lunar phenomena aligning, the travel to Australia coinciding with the eclipse, the last-minute, cloud-free sky, and the improvised composure and exposure, along with dash of luck, allowed me to defy the astronomical odds (literally) and capture what I would consider to be one of my most memorable photos of the Super-Blue-Blood Moon.

Panoramic Proportions

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In January of 2017 I brought in the New Year with two close friends in the far away land of California - it was my first time spending the holiday outside of Texas and, despite my nostalgia for the Lone Star State, it was unforgettable - I'd be hard pressed to say that I wouldn't want to live there full time; it's just too beautiful to decline.  The variety of terrain along the California coastline was absolutely spectacular and one stretch in particular, Big Sur, was simply too good to pass up; I had to photograph it.

My two friends - handy tour guides that they were - drove me to their "secret" vantage point of the famous Bixby Creek Bridge on Highway 1 just before sundown so that I could get to work.  My plan was simple: capture Big Sur in a way that no one had before.  Straightforward enough.  I was currently obsessed with taking large panoramas, so starting there was an easy choice.  Next was the more difficult task: finding a way to artfully use every source of light around me.  I've always liked light trails from passing cars, and I love the smooth look that lengthy exposures gives to moving water, but capturing them all in the same frame as a sunset is practically impossible (light trails and smooth water require long exposure times...sunsets, well, don't).  Lucky for me, rendering a large panorama meant a lot of exposures, so I would be able to fit multiple different exposure lengths into one photo.  Problem solved (ish).

To capture what I wanted I used a series of neutral density filters (glass that decreases the amount of light that reaches the camera's sensor) so that I could use the light around me as I preferred.  The whole ordeal took about two hours of composing, capturing, recomposing, and so on to end up with the 10 photos that I used to create this panorama of Big Sur (my two friends played chess in the car while they waited for me...nerds).

The final product took about 16 hours of processing after the fact (there is no program to automatically stitch together long exposure panoramas - I had do do it manually), and the size and complexity of the files crashed my computer numerous times along the way (I'm getting a new computer).  End result:  A 10 shot, differential exposure capturing a field of view of more than 180 degrees of the California coastline that houses the Bixby Creek Bridge, the setting sun, moving cars, and crashing waves all within a single frame of panoramic proportions.

SmartPhone Photography

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I wouldn't exactly label myself a purist, but I won't lie, I am extremely partial to using a DSLR for taking quality photos as opposed to a cell phone. However, after tonight, I must begrudgingly admit that, though not the photo I could have captured with a DSLR, my phone did surprisingly well.

This photo, juxtaposing the sunset and thunderstorms in Houston tonight, was taken on my very own Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. No tripod, no timer, no nothing. Just my hands shakily holding up my phone as I tapped on the screen. The framing of the photo could be a little wider, and the noise (grain) in the photo is caused by the phone using a high ISO setting to compensate for a much needed faster shutter speed in the low light (no tripod and shaky hands means no possibility of longer exposure times).

All in all, not a bad little camera. It still can't do what a DSLR can do, but then again, I can't put a DSLR in my back pocket...so, we'll call it a draw for now.

Contrast

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Every night the fountains in front of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, spring to life with color. The hour long show, called the "Dancing Waters" is accompanied by modern orchestral music that coincides perfectly with the movements of the fountains and the changes in the light.

This particular exposure, lasting about 3 seconds, captures the movement of the colored water as the fountains were raising and lowering from the left of the frame to the right. The immense amount of color displayed by the Dancing Waters outshines the dwarfing towers in the background so much that they look as if there are portrayed in black and white - a nifty optical illusion, as they were actually quite colorful themselves.

Life after Death

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At an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet above sea level, the trees on the peak that we made camp on in the Bridger Teton National Forest are few and far between. The combination of frigid temperatures, poor soil, and high winds have made it nearly impossible to sustain plant life. But the trees that do manage to take root among these harsh conditions make for some truly spectacular pieces of art:

The "tree" pictured here bears the scars of the extreme winds it once encountered during its life; twisting and spiraling upwards as if having been wrung out like a rag. Now long since living, it has been broken down and reduced to little more than a home to the moss growing on its East (not North)-facing side; meaning that, for all you outdoors-men out there, this is not the tree to use when trying to find your way home.

Lucky for me, its purpose was not for guidance out of the woods, but rather a portrait for experimenting with what I want to call Extreme Dynamic Range photography (EDR?). You've probably heard of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos before; in fact, these days just about every iPhone you can find has the capability. The process is simple: For most HDR shots, your camera will take multiple photos (very quickly) of the same view at different apertures (changing how much light your sensor receives) or exposure lengths (changing how long your sensor receives light). Then the software on your phone overlays the images onto one another to create a photo with a higher dynamic range of lighting than normally available.

What I have done is similar, but I have utilized only the process of changing the exposure length, except in my case the changes represented to capture this photo were in orders of magnitude (from three seconds to over three thousand) instead of minute increments like found in most phone cameras (usually from 1/200 of a second to 1/100 of a second...ish). The effect that you receive is the ability to see the rotation of the stars in the sky in the background of the photo, while still achieving tremendous detail of the moss and dead-wood in the foreground. Of course, some manual manipulation was necessary...I used a flashlight to illuminate the foreground so that I could achieve a shorter exposure time during the dark of night.

The end result: An Extreme Dynamic Range image. Pretty cool stuff, and a touch above what your everyday iPhone can produce.

Incense

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"The burning of an incense stick - resulting in fragrant smoke - teaches the necessity to burn away negative qualities within oneself in order to reveal the pure self within."

I found it a bit ironic that something meant to reveal the "pure self within" was dirtying the inside of this worship room so much that the once red-brick inner walls are now blackened with smoke residue. But I have to admit, though a bit hazy inside, the scent was very relaxing and created an ironically bright atmosphere. Maybe there's something to incense burning after all...

Endless rolling Waves of Green

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It's like being in a different world really. The green grass and forests go on endlessly, and the sheep outnumber the humans 7.25 to one (according to a friendly sheep-farmer/waitress...yes, you read that correctly).

This photo was taken at the highest point in a 10 kilometer radius, and the view was absolutely stunning. We could literally see 360 degrees for miles across the grass covered mountains, and all I can remember thinking is, "this is what New Zealand looks like in everyone's imagination: spectacular."

It may cost a pretty penny to get there, and you might even think that you would get bored of looking at magnificent views of rolling green mountains; but don't worry, New Zealand is full of surprises, and only a couple of hours' drive away there will be a rain forest, or a volcano, or the freaking pacific ocean. Trust me, if you ever take a vacation outside of the United States, this is the place to go - it really does live up to the hype.

Shutter Speed

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Last weekend I got to travel to Fort Worth, Texas, to attend the Red Bull Air Race World Championship at the Texas Motor Speedway, and needless to say, it had a lot more to offer than just free energy drinks:

This event is a collection of some of the world's top pilots, most expensive beverages ($7 for a glass of lemonade...), and of course, lots of advertising for Red Bull (because it gives you wings, duh).

The pilots fly upwards of 200 mph, experiencing accelerations of over 10 times the amount of gravity, at a mere 40-60 ft off of the ground as they navigate in and around a course of giant pylons to compete for the fastest times. If I had to describe it simply: It's kind of like watching NASCAR...except it's with airplanes and it's way, way cooler.

I had to use a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second (the maximum capability of my camera) just to capture clear photos as the planes flew by, and by the end of the two day long event I had taken over 2,400 pictures. I only kept 9.

This photo is probably my favorite out of them all. Each of the competition planes was retrofitted with a GoPro-esque camera on its tail to provide an (almost) live feed onto the jumbotron. Here you can see the fraction of a second delay between the actual flight of the plane and what the "live" view is showing. Note that the pilot is traveling at 159 mph, and experiencing 2.5 times the acceleration due to gravity at this moment, which, compared to other areas of the course, was like child's play.

Minutes for Men

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I used to visit the Bonfire Memorial all of the time when I was in college. There was just always something about it that drew me there...maybe it was because it was quiet. I liked to go out there and think while I paced around in the gravel. Others would sit. On late summer evenings robins would fly in from the nearby trees and peck around the soft grass in the center. Toads would come too. Maybe we were all there for our own reasons. To pay our respects, watch the sunset, find a meal, think...

But never once in my time as a student of Texas A&M did I think to photograph the Memorial; to capture in one frame the environment that brought both man and animal together in silence. I must have taken a hundred photos of the rowdy and loud Kyle Field; students cheering, stadium thundering. But not one of the Bonfire Memorial. It's just a different tradition I suppose. No bright lights, no pump-up music, no adrenaline. But a mark of Aggie Tradition none-the-less. And so last night I wanted to create a photo that showed the Spirit of Texas A&M University a little differently.

This 615 second (~10 min.) exposure of the Bonfire Memorial was taken just after dusk, and required me to sit still in silence for the entirety of the shot. I know that may not sound like much, but I urge you to give it a try. Go commemorate our lost loved ones, read each of their biographies, and give them ten minutes of your silence; you never know what you might think of.

When Multiple Exposures Go Right

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Here's one for the books:

Last night many people across the United States got to witness a full lunar eclipse, or "blood moon;" one of astronomy's rare treats, especially with such conveniently clear skies as that of College Station's.

With a lot of forward planning, and a solid nap Monday afternoon, I was able to stay up all night to photograph the five hour long event. You can see the moon throughout each phase as it passes in and out of the eclipse. All in all, a pretty spectacular sight to see, and I am very thankful that it turned out as I planned.

For those of you who may have missed out on this month's lunar eclipse, don't worry, there will be another one this coming October of 2014, so don't forget to mark your calendars!

Patience may be a virtue, but timing is luck

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I don't know what to say. The sheer amount of luck I have had this past month has been astonishing...

Tonight I set out to capture a long exposure of the starry night sky (the first cloud-free night in nearly two weeks here in College Station). My roommate and I drove all along the outskirts of the city looking for a great shot, but after about an hour in the cold we decided to call it a night and head back. On the way home I was telling him how much I wanted to take an exposure of a train at night, but how it was nearly impossible since I never knew when and where the trains were going to be. Then this happened.

A lone freight train slowed to a stop just as we drove up next to it, as if handed to me on a silver platter. As I was setting up my tripod and camera to take the picture, I heard a train horn in the distance. Another freight train was coming from the opposite direction on the parallel track. I gathered myself as quickly as possible and captured this 71 second exposure of the two overlapping trains. My excitement when I saw the finished product was indescribable.

Not long after the passing train was gone, the first train gathered up and left as well. I stumbled upon a probably less than ten minute window of that train standing still, and an even less two minute window of the two trains overlapping. Wow. What a night.